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POLICY AND PRACTICE REPORT

KEY LEARNING FROM

THE BALLYMUN YOUTH

GUARANTEE PROJECT

Co-funded by the European Union

Photos:

Collage of photos taken at various BYG events during 2014, including Partner

Organisations, participants etc.

Page 7: Former EU Commissioner Laszlo Andor’s visit to Ballymun Youth Guarantee

Pilot Project, May 2014

Page 32: Various BYG participants, Commissioner Andor’s visit.

POLICY AND

PRACTICE REPORT

KEY LEARNING FROM

THE BALLYMUN YOUTH

GUARANTEE PROJECT

MAURICE DEVLIN

Department of Social Protection (DSP)

Aras Mhic Dhiarmada, Store Street, Dublin 1.

www.welfare.ie

March, 2015

Author: Prof. Maurice Devlin.

Maurice Devlin is Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the Centre for Youth Research and Development at Maynooth University.

This Report is available online at www.welfare.ie.

Disclaimer: This Report was commissioned by the National Steering Group as part of the Ballymun Youth Guarantee Pilot Project.

This project is co-funded by the European Union and the Department of Social Protection. Sole responsibility lies with the author

for the views, opinions, findings, conclusions and/or recommendations expressed. Neither the European Union nor the Department

of Social Protection are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.

E

CONTENTS1. Introduction 1

2. Youth Employment and Unemployment 2

3. The EU Youth Guarantee 6

4. The Youth Guarantee in Ireland 8

5. The Ballymun pilot Youth Guarantee 10

5.1 Introduction 10

5.2 Policy framework and principles 11

5.3 Activation approach and client groups 12

6. Key Elements of Implementation of the BYG Pilot 14

6.1 Offers, progressions and initial outcomes 14

6.2 Partnership and interagency work 16

6.3 Guidance process 17

6.4 Education and training 19

6.5 Employer engagement 21

6.6 Publicly-funded employment programmes 23

6.7 Youth work approach 23

7. Lessons Learned and Implications for Policy and Practice 25

7.1 Partnership 25

7.2 Guidance process 26

7.3 Education and training 28

7.4 Employer engagement 29

7.5 Youth work approach 30

7.6 Very marginalised young people 30

7.7 Adjustments to employment programmes 31

7.8 Information systems 31

8. Conclusion: The Effectiveness of the Ballymun Youth Guarantee 33

References 35

F

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1. INTRODUCTIONThis report provides an overview of the context and implementation of the Ballymun Youth Guarantee

(BYG) pilot project. It attempts to distil the key lessons learned and to identify the implications for policy and

practice. It should therefore be of interest and relevance to policy makers, practitioners and other stakeholders

concerned with youth employment and unemployment.

The report itself cannot be exhaustive. However it draws on a very large body of information and

documentation relating to the BYG project, including:

• policystatements,backgroundreportsandotherdocumentsrelatingtotheYouthGuaranteeand

youth (un)employment in Ireland and the European Union;

• localandnationallabourforcedata;

• statisticaldataonthenumbersandtypesofoffersmadetoyoungpeoplebytheBYG;

• casestudiesofBYGclients;

• testimonialsfromparticipantsinprogrammes,placementsandinitiativesassociatedwiththeBYG;

• minutesofmeetingsoftheNationalSteeringGroupandLocalImplementationGroupfortheBYG,

and other organisational and administrative reports, including a detailed report on ‘lessons learned’

prepared by the NSG;

• acomprehensiveindependentevaluationoftheBYGconductedbyFranklinResearchwhichitselfis

based on extensive qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis;

• separateevaluations,consultancyreportsandinformationreportsonindividualelementsoftheBYG

project (for example the guidance process) or specific initiatives associated with it (education and

training programmes, employer-led interventions);

• writtencommentsbymembersoftheNSG,LIGandotherstakeholderswhilethereportwasin

preparation.

The work of all of those who contributed to the materials on which this report is based is gratefully

acknowledged. It is hoped that, both through their own efforts and through the synthesis presented in this

report, their experience and insights can help to inform the roll out of the national Youth Guarantee in Ireland.

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2. YOUTH EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT

The global economic crisis that followed the near-collapse of worldwide financial markets in 2008 has had

a profoundly negative effect on young people, manifested most obviously in the dramatic increase in youth

unemployment rates. Even prior to this, in a broadly positive economic climate, youth unemployment was

often a concern in many countries, reflecting the persistent pattern whereby young people are at a relative

disadvantage in the labour market (Bell & Blanchflower 2011; O’Higgins 2012). But the scale of the problem

in recent years has led to an unprecedented focus, at national and international levels, on the need to develop

effective responses.

It is usual for the rate of youth unemployment to be considerably higher than that of adults, and in times of

recession the difference can be magnified. In recent years for example unemployment among 15-24 year-

olds was on average 2.8 times higher than among older members of the labour force in both EU and OECD

countries. But in several countries, including Norway, Italy and the UK, it was between three and four times

higherandinSwedenandIcelanditwasmorethanfourtimeshigher(Furlong,2013;Scarpettaetal.,2010).

During the recent recession youth employment in Ireland reached its lowest ever level, with the decline

particularly concentrated in construction and services. In the years 2007-2012, people aged 15-24 accounted

for 90% of the overall decline in labour market participation (Eurostat; Gonzáles Pandiella 2013).

There are a number of reasons for young people’s higher rates of unemployment: they account for a

disproportionate share of new jobseekers and are more likely to be affected when employers stop recruiting;

they are more likely to be in temporary positions; and they are more likely than older workers to be laid

off(Furlong2013;O’Higgins2001).Inaddition,youngpeopletendtobeoverrepresentedinjobsthatare

sensitive to economic cycles, such as construction and related sectors (Oireactas Library & Research Service

2013; ILO 2011). While in general young people tend to be unemployed for shorter periods than older adults,

the difference is not large enough for the problem to be treated as one of transient ‘frictional’ unemployment.

Furthermore,thetimeayoungpersonspendsunemployedcanhave‘permanentlydamagingconsequences

on the rest of that person’s “working” life’ (O’Higgins 2001: 161). This is related to the concept of ‘path

dependency’: early unemployment increases the likelihood of subsequent unemployment, with its attendant ill

effects. Some writers refer to labour market ‘scarring’ which has a number of dimensions:

• precludingaccumulationofworkexperienceanddeteriorationofgeneralskills;

• negativesignalingeffectsonfutureearningsandimpededfutureworktransitions;

• socialnetworklosses.

(Arulampalam 2001; Dietrich 2012)

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2.1 Policiestoaddressyouth (un)employmentMost European countries have for some time had specific policies or programmes in place to address youth

(un)employment. In some other countries it is dealt with as part of broader government policy on employment

and unemployment. Ireland has up until now been among the latter group. According to the European

Commission: ‘In Ireland… issues relating to youth employment tend to be addressed in the context of labour

market policy as a whole. However, as there are a number of measures in place to support young people this

does not imply that youth matters receive less than adequate attention’ (European Commission 2010: 29).

The introduction of the Youth Guarantee means that, by definition, the specific situation of young people is

intended to receive careful attention in all EU countries. The advantages of youth-specific interventions can be

summarised as follows:

• Youngpeoplefacespecificchallengesinaccessingthelabourmarketsotailoredresponsesaremore

likely to be effective.

• Unemployedyoungpeopleincursignificanteconomiccostsasthenationalworkforceisnotbeingused

to its full potential. Such underutilization can trigger a cycle of intergenerational poverty and social

exclusion.

• Lackofemploymentopportunitiesleadstoarangeofothersocialproblems,which,inturn,have

negative human consequences and incur high social costs.

(Adapted from Coenjaerts et al. 2009: 120)

Measures to tackle youth unemployment – and promote youth employment – can take a number of forms

and can be targeted at different stages in the transition experienced by young people as they move through

the latter stages of schooling and into the labour market or on to further education or training programmes.

Figure1isdrawnfromaEurofoundreviewof‘policymeasurestoincreasetheemploymentparticipationof

young people’ (Eurofound 2012). It shows that some measures seek to intervene before risk factors occur

whereas others intervene at later stages of the young person’s pathway to employment. The relevance of this

framework for the Youth Guarantee will be revisited later in this report.

Figure 1: The pathway to employment (Source: Eurofound 2012)

POLICY AND PRACTICE REPORT: KEY LEARNING FROM THE BALLYMUN YOUTH GUARANTEE PROJECT

PATHWAY TO EMPLOYMENT

MEASURES WHICHINTERVENE BEFORE

RISK FACTORSOCCUR

MEASURES WHICHAIM TO GET

YOUNGPEOPLE BACK INTO

EDUCATION /TRAINING

MEASURES TOFACILITATE THETRANSITION TOEMPLOYMENT

(TRAINING)MEASURES WHICHAIM TO ENHANCEYOUNG PEOPLE’SEMPLOYABILITY

MEASURES TO HELPGROUPS AT A

SPECIFICDISADVANTAGE ON

THE LABOURMARKET

Measuresaiming to

prevent earlyschool leaving

(ESL)

Measuresaiming to

reintegrateearly school

leavers

Measures tofacilitate the

transitionfrom school to

work

Measures tofoster

employabilityamong young

people

Measures toremove

practical /logistical

barriers andemployerincentives

MEASURES WHICH AIM TO IMPROVE OR REFORM THE SERVICES AVAILABLE TO YOUNG PEOPLE

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As regards the steps that should be taken, and the key issues to be addressed, in promoting youth

employment, the following were among the recommendations that emerged from an OECD conference on

this theme in Dublin:

1. Create the right institutional setting There is a need to ensure that labour market institutional settings are youth friendly and protect young

people through sufficient regulation, while maintaining an appropriate balance so that employers are

not dissuaded from taking on more young workers. Moving to an individualised system can ensure that

each young person is engaged with on a personal basis.

2. Take an integrated approach, taking care to involve employers and young peopleEstablish partnerships across agencies, institutions and with employers. Greater collaboration at the

local level with employers has a number of advantages and often if programmes do not work it is due

to lack of employer involvement. Young people also need a say in the services which are being created

for them. Build an opportunity for young people to make connections with policy making and involve

them in programme design.

3. Develop the right kind of skillsYoung people need to acquire basic foundation skills for life-long learning, with early and sustained

support. This requires action on multiple fronts: education and training, early years supports, labour

market programmes and labour market institutional settings.

4. Stress connections between education and work and build in work experienceProviding young people with work experience is key: skills can be taught but this is not the same

as experience. Making connections between education and work builds work readiness, can be a

motivating force and raises self-esteem. It is important for young people to acquire periods of work

experience early and not just when they are looking for their first job. Subsidised job training/work

experience, job guarantee schemes and adapted apprenticeship approaches (in-school vocational

education paired with work experience) can also be effective.

5. Target the disadvantaged, but also those who can benefit mostIn an era of limited resources there is a need to target interventions. The main target group for

intensive assistance should be hardest-to-reach young people - those not in education, employment or

training. Preventative work to stop vulnerable young people dropping out of school is essential as once

out of the system it is much harder to get them back in.

6. Youth entrepreneurship has untapped potentialIn light of rising youth unemployment, young people need to be encouraged to take advantage

of opportunities in the smart economy and create their own employment opportunities. The local

‘eco system’ can be made more conducive to entrepreneurial activity by making everything young

entrepreneurs need available under one roof e.g. funding information, training, mentoring from

experienced entrepreneurs and successful peer role models, and peer support. Support requires

creating a culture which does not punish young people for failing. (Adapted from OECD 2012: 22-24)

The theme of partnership, mentioned at point 2 above, is a consistent one in recent literature on youth

employment and unemployment, as indeed in other areas of social and economic policy.

Partnerships among governments, employers’ organizations, trade unions and other organizations can

be instrumental in determining the most appropriate action to be taken at national and local levels for

the promotion of decent work for young people. To bring high youth unemployment rates down, it is

essential that employers, unions and governments not only dialogue together about how to achieve

5

a socio-economic recovery, but mobilize to develop specific projects and interventions, including in

partnership with young people. (ILO 2012: 36)

In relation to the last point above – partnership with young people – there has been a growing emphasis

in recent years on the contribution of youth work to young people’s employment prospects and indeed to

economic and social development as a whole. This is just one aspect of a wide range of benefits young people

gain from their participation in youth work (Devlin and Gunning 2009; NYCI 2013; Youthnet 2013). A study

commissionedbytheEuropeanYouthForumintotheimpactofnon-formaleducationinyouthorganisations

on young people’s employability concluded that regular engagement and participation in youth organisations

brings high ‘soft-skills’ development:

Amongst the six skills mostly demanded by employers, five are also among those developed through

involvement in youth organisations: [these are] communication, team work, decision-making,

organisational skills and self-confidence [the exception being numeracy]’. (Souto-Otero et al. 2013: 17)

While it is important to recognise that there may be a tension between ‘a labour activation model and a more

holistic personal development/non-formal learning model favoured by youth work’ (Bamber and Garvey 2014:

8), initiatives to combat youth unemployment can benefit not just from youth work approaches and methods

but from the high level of trust and confidence that young people tend to have in youth workers and youth

organisations:

Youthworkcanplayakeyroleinreachingouttoallyoungpeople.Forthosewithfeweropportunities,

youth work supports re-integration, through its close and informal contacts with young people, youth-

friendly outreach and ability to instil trust in young people to get in touch with authorities. It provides

individual support on occupational orientation and counselling, tailored to the particular challenges of

different young people, in an informal environment. (European Commission 2014a: 5)

However all efforts to promote youth employment must begin by recognising ‘the limitations of the labour

market itself’ (Behle 2010: 80). Since youth unemployment is so closely tied to the general unemployment

problem ‘the most important solution is to improve the macroeconomic environment’ (Görlich 2013: 6). But

as already noted unemployment among young people is consistently more severe than among other groups,

and even in employment young workers face a range of particular challenges and disadvantages (European

Commission 2011: 25-27), so it is important to develop solutions that can have a lasting benefit for young

people.

Even before the crisis, the situation with regard to youth employment was unsatisfactory in most

countries. Consequently, the crisis should be seen as an opportunity to solve long-standing youth

employment problems and to develop youth employment strategies that take into account all the

dimensions of decent work, and not just youth employment in quantitative terms. (Ha et al.: 2010: 23)


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3. THE EUROPEAN UNION YOUTH GUARANTEE

The Youth Guarantee (YG), as defined by the Council Recommendation of April 2013, is a pledge by all

Member States of the EU to ensure that ‘all young people under the age of 25 years receive a good-quality

offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months

of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education’. Young people should be provided with a personalised

offer that addresses the specific barriers they face in gaining a strong foothold in the labour market. Similarly,

young people’s school-to-work transitions can be long and complex, including alternating phases of education,

work and potentially periods of unemployment and inactivity. In many cases this will require re-thinking the

‘sequencing’ of interventions such that the transitions for the young person are positive and as seamless as

possible in order to keep young people connected to the labour market.

The Youth Guarantee takes into consideration both immediate and long-term perspectives. When it was

adopted, immediate action was considered necessary to relieve the unacceptably high levels of youth

unemployment and inactivity. This included, for instance, financial incentives to support work placements,

apprenticeships and training. The YG also stressed that these actions should be accompanied by long-term

reforms to address the structural barriers faced by young people as they transition to working life (e.g.

investing in multi-stakeholder partnerships, apprenticeship reforms, outreach strategies or PES capacity-building

to work with young people not in employment, education or training (‘NEET’). Although youth unemployment

is falling (to variable degrees) across the EU, including in Ireland, the objectives of the YG are still important to

ensure that as the recovery takes hold, young people are able to benefit fully from that recovery.

The Youth Guarantee is complemented by two European initiatives aiming to increase the provision of two

typesofqualityoffers:traineeshipsandapprenticeships.TheQualityFrameworkforTraineeshipsaimstoensure

that traineeships outside formal education provide high quality learning content and fair working conditions so

that traineeships effectively support education-to-work transitions and increase the employability of trainees.

The European Alliance for Apprenticeships aims to increase the quality and supply of apprenticeships across

Europe and to change mind-sets towards this type of learning.

Since the Youth Guarantee is an outcome-focused structural reform, the means of implementation may vary

both within and across Member States. Indeed, there is no single, one-size-fits-all Youth Guarantee scheme

that could respond to the needs of different groups of young people across all European countries. As the

Council Recommendation establishing the Youth Guarantee of April 2013 specifically states: ‘the Youth

Guarantee should […] be geared to national, regional and local circumstances’. This means that Member

States should base their actions on a comprehensive analysis of youth unemployment and inactivity in their

country/regions, carry out a mapping of existing policies on youth employment and link these measures to

a comprehensive YG scheme (e.g. by introducing appropriate referral systems and avoiding duplication of

activity), and fill policy gaps by means of targeted reforms or new initiatives to ensure that the approach is

comprehensive and does not leave any one behind. Even if there is no one way of organising or structuring

the YG, there are key elements – building blocks – which support successful design and implementation of the

approach.TheseareintroducedinFigure2below,togetherwithothersupportiveconditions.

7

Figure 2: Key building blocks of the Youth Guarantee (Source: European Commission 2014b)


NO SINGLE, ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL YOUTH GUARANTEE SCHEME

KEY BUILDING BLOCKS OTHER SUPPORTIVE KEY CONDITIONS

Early intervention and activation can prevent accumulation of problems and detachment from the

labour market Takes into consideration both immediate and long-term perspectives

Partnership that connect all key organisations supporting young people in different stages & aspects of their ‘journey’ to employment support a more efficient

delivery of services, build on different actors’ strengths and avoid duplication of efforts

Is tailored to the national, regional and local contexts

Supportive measures for labour market integration address skills mismatches, can improve young people’s employability and take them on a supported pathway

towards employment

The YG approach is comprehensive and does not leave anyone behind

National budget should prioritise youth to avoid higher costs in the future. The EC is financially supporting the

implementationoftheYGthroughYEIandESFRequires political commitment and should be seen as

positive financial investment in the future

Implementation of the Youth Guarantee acts as a catalyst for re-thinking the approach to youth unemployment

Commitment to the provision of high quality, individualised offers

On-going monitoring and evaluation of YG activities ensures efficient use of resources and positive returns on

investment

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4. THE YOUTH GUARANTEE IN IRELAND

The approach to a Youth Guarantee for Ireland is set out in Pathways to Work: The Implementation of the EU

Council Recommendation for a Youth Guarantee. It is designed to take account of the current institutional

structure, most specifically in terms of the transition from education to working life and the way in which

the benefits system and Public Employment Service engages with the young unemployed. The Irish Youth

Guarantee identifies two separate groups of young people to whom the concept of a guarantee will operate in

different ways.

a) Young people under the age of 18 years, who have left the school system without completing

secondary education, and who have failed to find employment, will be provided with a quality ‘second-

chance’ educational /training pathway outside the school system, such as Youthreach, or be supported

in re-entering the school system;

b) Young people aged 18-24 years who become unemployed (whether on loss of a job or while seeking

first employment) and register with the benefits/employment service, and who subsequently remain

unemployed for four months, will be provided with assistance to secure work or alternatively with a

quality offer of training, education or work experience.

Achieving these targets is a medium-term policy objective of the Irish government. It is envisaged that the

guarantee as it affects those aged under 18 years will be implemented by the end of 2015. The guarantee

of an offer of training, education or work experience for those aged 18-24 years after a four month period is

being implemented on a phased basis as follows:

• Startingin2014,processesandprogrammesarebeingprogressivelyrolledouttoensurethatallof

those young unemployed people who need most support (i.e. are assessed as having a low probability

of securing employment in the absence of support from the Public Employment Services) will receive a

Youth Guarantee offer within four months.

• Startingin2014,andforcompletionbytheendof2015,processesandprogrammeswillbe

progressively rolled out to ensure that all those young unemployed people assessed as having a

medium-to-high probability of finding employment will, if still unemployed after nine months, receive a

Youth Guarantee Offer.

• During2014-2015alllong-termunemployedyoungpeopleunder25willbeengagedbythePublic

Employment Service and will receive a Youth Guarantee offer if still unemployed after four months of

this engagement process commencing.

Specific recent Youth Guarantee initiatives being implemented in the context of Pathways to Work 2015

include JobsPlus Youth, under which the qualifying period for jobseekers under 25 has been reduced from

12 to 4 months (JobsPlus incentivises businesses to hire jobseekers from the Live Register by providing

monthly cash payments to offset wage costs) and First Steps, which offers young jobseekers aged 18-25

the opportunity to avail of funded training and work experience with the help of dedicated assistance from

Department of Social Protection case officers and mentors in sponsoring organisations (the target is 2000

placements of 6-9 months duration during 2015).

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The operation and coverage of the Youth Guarantee as set out above will be reviewed before the end of 2015,

in the light of developments in the economy and in the labour market. Should the labour market situation of

young people improve during this period the review will examine opportunities to broaden and deepen the

level of supports offered in respect of those young people who continue to be unemployed.

The Department of Social Protection (DSP) has been identified as the lead co-ordinating organisation for the

Youth Guarantee, and as the central point for communication with the European Commission in relation

to the YG in Ireland. The Department has responsibility for the Public Employment Service, activation of the

unemployed and the payment of social welfare payments to jobseekers. These three services were previously

provided by separate agencies but are now integrated within the Department and are provided under the

service name Intreo. A number of other government departments and statutory agencies will be involved and

are members of an interdepartmental Youth Guarantee Implementation Group. These are:

• DepartmentofEducationandSkills(DES)

• DepartmentofJobs,EnterpriseandInnovation(DJEI)

• DepartmentofChildrenandYouthAffairs(DCYA)

• DepartmentofPublicExpenditureandReform(DPER)

• SOLAS,theFurtherEducationandTrainingAuthority

Other national partners that the government has indicated will be invited to participate in the delivery and/or

review of the Youth Guarantee include:

• IrishBusiness&Employers’Confederation(Ibec)

• IrishCongressofTradeUnions(ICTU)

• NationalYouthCouncilofIreland(NYCI)

• IrishLocalDevelopmentNetwork(ILDN)

• LabourMarketCouncil(LMC)

• Skillnets

• BusinessIntheCommunity(BITC)

• CharteredInstituteofPersonnelandDevelopment

The government has indicated that the approach at a national level will be mirrored at local level by ‘the direct

involvement of the local representatives of the national stakeholders’.

The co-ordinator at a local level is the DSP, or more specifically the local PES (Intreo) office. The Intreo

Office will provide the point of entry for most young people entering the Youth Guarantee process, and its

referral function is intended to ensure the involvement of other stakeholders, such as employers, training/

education providers such as the ETBs, and in the case of the most disadvantaged young people/areas the Local

Employment Service (which operates for the most part through Local Development Companies) and other

community and voluntary groups. The national implementation plan for the Youth Guarantee noted that one

model of stakeholder involvement at the local level was being tried out under the pilot YGS in Ballymun and

indicated that lessons from the pilot would inform stakeholder involvement in other areas of the country as the

implementation plan is rolled out.


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5. THE BALLYMUN YOUTH GUARANTEE PILOT

5.1 IntroductionPrior to the adoption of the Council Recommendation on the Youth Guarantee during Ireland’s EU Presidency

(as outlined above), the European Parliament had asked the European Commission to implement preparatory

actions to support the setting-up of pilot Youth Guarantee schemes in Member States. The call for proposals

was launched in 2012 and this resulted in 18 pilot projects being funded, in seven countries: Ireland, Italy,

Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom. Almost all of the targeted localities were areas

of social and economic disadvantage in which large numbers of young people have low levels of educational

attainment and face multiple obstacles in gaining a foothold in the labour market. The intention was to use

the experience gained from the pilot projects to provide Member States with practical recommendations for

implementing national Youth Guarantee schemes and programming related actions under the European Social

FundandYouthEmploymentInitiative.

In response to the call from the Commission, Ireland’s Department of Social Protection (Lead Agency) submitted

a proposal (VS/213/0232-S12.659060) to establish the pilot Ballymun Youth Guarantee (BYG), which was

approved for funding to the value of €302,279.

Having been built in the 1960s, primarily as a tower block scheme, and experienced many years of persistent

and severe social problems, Ballymun has in recent years undergone a process of regeneration through the

construction of 2700 new housing units, a new main street, civic centre, primary health care centre, arts centre

and two new hotels. But it remains among the most socially and economically disadvantaged areas in Ireland.

In the Census of Population 2011 the proportion whose principal economic status was unemployed was 36%,

compared with a figure for Dublin of 18% and a national one of 19% (the corresponding figures for employed

persons were 44%, 58% and 57% respectively).

Young people’s participation in the labour force in Ballymun is quite high (46% compared with a national average

of 30%) largely due to the fact they tend to leave the education system much earlier. This is reflected in their

low level of educational attainment, with 88% of young people in Ballymun having at best a Leaving Certificate

qualification. One result of this is that the labour force in Ballymun consists of a much larger proportion of

unskilled/semi-skilled workers than the national average – 21% compared with 14% (Census 2011).

The BYG model was developed and delivered by a partnership of key stakeholders at national and local level.

A National Steering Group (NSG) was responsible for finalising the design of the pilot and monitoring its

implementation. The membership of the NSG comprised senior representatives from:

• DepartmentofSocialProtection(Chair)

• ActivatingDublin(collaborationbetweenDublinCityCouncilandDublinChamberofCommerce)

• CityofDublinEducationandTrainingBoard(CDETB)

• DepartmentofEducationandSkills(DES)

• DepartmentofJobs,EnterpriseandInnovation(DJEI)

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• DublinCityCouncil

• IrishBusinessandEmployers’Conference(Ibec)

• IrishCongressofTradeUnions(ICTU)

• IrishLocalDevelopmentNetwork(ILDN)

• NationalYouthCouncilofIreland(NYCI)

• SOLAS,theFurtherEducationandTrainingAuthority

This broad stakeholder partnership was mirrored on the Local Implementation Group (LIG) whose role was to

identify and refer participants, offer advice on progress and generally support the implementation of the BYG

pilot project. The membership of the LIG included representatives from local service providers, employers and

youth organisations, including:

• DepartmentofSocialProtection(Chair)

• BallymunJobCentre/LocalEmploymentService

• BallymunRegionalYouthResource(BRYR)

• BallymunWhitehallAreaPartnership

• CityofDublinEducationandTrainingBoard(CDETB)

• FastTracktoInformationTechnology(FIT)

• NorthDublinChamberofCommerce

5.2PolicyframeworkandprinciplesAt the outset of its work, the National Steering Group adopted a policy framework to underpin the design and

implementation of the pilot Youth Guarantee. This consisted of ten principles identified by Eurofound (2012)

on the basis of an analysis of the effectiveness of policy measures on youth unemployment in a range of EU

member states. They were as follows:

1. Successful policy measures specify their target group and find innovative ways to reach them, e.g. by

establishing a good reputation or working with relevant community groups for hard-to-reach groups.

2. Young people vary in their level of labour market readiness and policies have to cater for a range of

minor to complex needs.

3. Policy delivery relies on appropriate personnel, who need to be trained and supported.

4. Young people should be set up on a long-term sustainable pathway, e.g. by providing them with

necessary skills and stable employment, rather than low-quality quick fixes.

5. Successful policies offer good quality career advice and comprehensive holistic guidance.

6. Youth employment measures should focus on the client, not the provider, e.g. by offering tailored,

personalised advice by mentors.

7. Inter-agency collaboration and involvement of all stakeholders can be a cost-effective way to

implement policies, when the specific roles and responsibilities of different actors are specified.

8. Measures that aim to increase the employability of young people should focus on existing and future

labour market needs and ensure a buy-in of employers and their representatives.


12

9. Youth unemployment requires flexible responses, which have to be adapted to economic cycles,

whereas social exclusion is a structural issue and has to be addressed consistently.

10. Robust monitoring and evaluation should be used to inform policymaking and development.

5.3ActivationapproachandclientgroupsThe model adopted an activation approach tailored to the needs of the individual and designed to support

each young person on a sustainable pathway to employment. The BYG was more ambitious than the national

YG both in the nature of the offer and the implementation schedule. It set itself the target of guaranteeing a

good-quality offer of a job, apprenticeship, traineeship, work-experience, or continued education to:

• allyoungpeopleagedbetween18and24livingintheBallymunareawithinfourmonthsof

registration at the DSP Intreo Centre and to

• allexistingregistrantsagedbetween18and24withinfourmonthsofafirst“1-2-1”meetingwitha

guidance practitioner.

The offer would be made within a four month period after the initial guidance interview with the Ballymun Job

Centre. It was decided that the offer would be extended to a maximum of 90 participants per month.

The BYG gave each client a guarantee of access to career guidance/assistance leading to identification of an

individual career plan for the young unemployed person with follow-through to training, education, work

experience or full-time employment, provided in partnership with a range of stakeholders as described later

in this report. Depending on the needs of the person, the steps in the career plan might include personal

assessment, job search assistance, skills training, work experience internships, but the objective in all cases was

to lead the young person to employment placement or further education or training.

An important part of the overall approach to activation (based on policy principle 2 referred to above) was an

acknowledgement that young jobseekers are not a homogeneous group. One of the first things the partners

on the Local Implementation Group did was to conduct an analysis of young people in Ballymun using data

from various sources including the CSO and the Public Employment Service in order to build a profile of

potential beneficiaries so as to assist in capacity planning. The analysis facilitated the identification of groups

of young people that would require different types of interventions based on their perceived employment

readiness. When matched against existing capacity in the locality, shortfalls and gaps were identified. A

decision was made to provide for increased capacity to meet the anticipated need (if necessary by redistributing

resources from other areas) in order to maximise the learning from the BYG. The LIG also recognised the need

to respond flexibly to clients presenting for guidance as individual needs could only be fully identified during

the course of the guidance process. It was anticipated that the need for particular types of intervention would

also have to reflect the emergence of other opportunities (e.g. the allocation of a significant number of places

on the Gateway scheme) or emergent labour market needs, work experience or employment opportunities.

The NSG and LIG also recognised that certain clients (particularly those with multiple barriers) might require a

number of interventions as part of a structured supported pathway to employment. A particular focus of the

BYG has been to increase the volume and range of options available to meet the disparate needs of the client

base. This includes extending eligibility for participation in certain programmes to the YG cohort (see reference

to Community Employment below), prioritising young people for certain programmes (e.g. Tús) and developing

new innovative approaches (e.g. the collaboration with the UCD Innovation Academy referred to in section 6.4).

13

The analysis conducted by the LIG resulted in the identification of three groups of young people each of which

would require different types of interventions based on their perceived employment readiness (although it was

acknowledged that there may be some overlap between the groups):

• TargetGroup1:clientswithJuniorCertificate/equivalentorlessandlittleornoworkexperience(45%).

Some of these clients would also face additional barriers such as literacy/numeracy, substance misuse

and/or criminal records.

• TargetGroup2:clientswithLeavingCertificate/equivalentorsomeworkexperience(40%)

• TargetGroup3:clientswithaboveLeavingCertificate/equivalentorgoodworkexperience(15%)

The percentages given above represent the breakdown of the overall Ballymun youth cohort. However, the

breakdown of those actually participating in the BYG were somewhat different: TG1 accounted for 35% of

clients, TG2 for 47% and TG3 for 18%. This confirms the difficulty of engaging the most disadvantaged young

people, a point returned to later in this report.

The original proposal for the pilot YG envisaged that a ‘quality offer’ would be made to 810 young people

during the project (90 per month by 9 months). However, the number of potential beneficiaries turned out to

be lower than initially estimated and because of this the BYG National Steering Group decided to extend the

guarantee to all registered jobseekers under 25 years of age in the area. By the end of the project there were

739 clients.

Number (%)

GENDER Male 483 (65%)

Female 256 (35%)

AGE < 19 years [DSP payment €100 p/w or €5,200 p/a] 242 (33%)

20-25 years [DSP payment €188 p/w or €9,776 p/a] 497 (67%)

STATUS (before

taking part in the

Pilot Project)

In education or training (full-time or part-time) Nil

Unemployed (registered jobseeker for less than 6 months) 355 (48%)

Long term unemployed (registered jobseeker for over 6 months) 384 (52%)

Table 1: BYG participants by gender, age group and duration of unemployment

Approximately two thirds of participants were male and approximately two thirds were aged 20 and over. Just

over one half had been unemployed long-term. Table 1 provides the details.


14

6. KEY ELEMENTS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE BYG PILOT

6.1 Offers,progressionsandinitialoutcomes

As already indicated, of the total 739 clients dealt with by the YGS, 255 (35%) were categorised as Target

Group 1 (highest level of need), 345 (47%) were Target Group 2 and 139 (18%) were Target Group 3 (lowest

level of need). Many clients presented very significant labour market barriers including no employment history,

poor educational qualifications and limited expectations regarding employment. In this respect, they reflected

the local Ballymun context. The objective of the BYG was to improve their long term sustainability on the

labour market and not merely the achievement of short term outcomes.

As of the end of December 2014, 60 clients had dropped out of the BYG (some had changed to a Lone Parent

payment or disability payment; others closed their payment) leaving 679 clients who had completed or were

completing the process. A total of 593 clients were involved in training, work programmes or employment

(including eleven young people on ‘pre-offers’1) and the vast majority of those – 98% - had received their offer

within four months. This left 86 who were still in the guidance process at the end of December, and it was

expected that most of these would also receive an offer.

Figure3providesasummaryofoffersmade.ByfarthelargestcategorywasFurtherEducationandTraining

(338or46%ofthetotalnumberofclients).Figure4providesamoredetailedbreakdownofoffersinstate-

fundedprogrammesotherthanFET.

An analysis of offers per target group would appear to confirm the assumption that different types of offer are

required to address the disparate needs of the clients.

ThemostpopularoffersforclientsinTargetGroup1wereFETprogrammesatNQFLevels3,4and5(120)with

smaller numbers availing of the publicly-funded employment options (35), or blended learning programmes

(15). Only 7 secured fulltime and 3 secured part-time employment in the private sector.

TargetGroup2availedofFEToptionsatalllevels(165)andpublicly-fundedemploymentopportunities2 were

also popular (77). In addition, 27 secured full-time employment and 14 secured part-time employment in the

private sector.

Unsurprisingly, much higher numbers of Target Group 3 secured private sector employment – 17 full-time and

9part-time.ThemostpopularoffersforFETprogrammeswereatNQFLevel5andabove(24),butasignificant

proportion required Level 4/5 (20) and nine actually required Level 3. Twenty availed of internships under the

JobBridge programme.

1 The BYG implemented a pre-offer stage for those most marginalised including addiction counselling and mental health

support. This was to allow the participants the time to engage with supports that would assist them to address their

issues prior to their formal engagement with the BYG.

2 Such as the Community Employment (CE) programme

15

Figure 4: Offers funded by State/partners (not including FET programmes)

Figure 3: Classification of offers


0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

3

22

5

22

10

43

7

5

11

15

3

90

12

Further education or training (FET)

Full-time employment

Part-time employment

Traineeships, work experience or blendedlearning programmes (Worklink)

Employment programmes(CE, Gateway, Tús)

Internships

Pre-offer (e.g. counselling)

Awaiting offer

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

338

51

26

44

114

20

11

86

Horticulture Programme*

BallyRunners*

Premier Dining blended learning programme*

ICTU Employment Programme*

BRYR LTI

Positive 2 Work Programme (blended learning)

UCD Innovation Academy

Gateway

BITC

IKEA Traineeship

Worklink

Community Employment

Tús

*Funded by BYG

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

3

22

5

22

10

43

7

5

11

15

3

90

12

Further education or training (FET)

Full-time employment

Part-time employment

Traineeships, work experience or blendedlearning programmes (Worklink)

Employment programmes(CE, Gateway, Tús)

Internships

Pre-offer (e.g. counselling)

Awaiting offer

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

338

51

26

44

114

20

11

86

Horticulture Programme*

BallyRunners*

Premier Dining blended learning programme*

ICTU Employment Programme*

BRYR LTI

Positive 2 Work Programme (blended learning)

UCD Innovation Academy

Gateway

BITC

IKEA Traineeship

Worklink

Community Employment

Tús

*Funded by BYG

16

It is notable that so few participants gained employment in the private sector. Many of the young people

indicated that what they really wanted was a job – any job - but the experience during the pilot was that there

were insufficient private sector employment opportunities for job-ready clients. Many other young people were

not job-ready or did not have the requisite skills or experience to avail of such opportunities as were available.

The issues are complex and, among other things, they point to the importance of intensifying employer

engagementtomaximiseprivatesectoremploymentpotentialandensuretherelevanceofFETtothelabour

market.MeanwhilethereissignificantpressureonthestatesectortoprovidesuitableFETorpublicly-funded

work experience options. This has significant human and financial resource implications. It should also be noted

that JobsPlus Youth (referred to earlier in the section on the Youth Guarantee in Ireland) was unavailable during

the BYG pilot.

Outcomes to date and feedback from BYG staff indicate that the ‘offer’ is seen as the start of a process and

not the end. Many of the options available are stepping stones along a structured and supported pathway

to sustainable employment. The length of that journey will vary enormously from client to client. While the

short-term outcome can quickly be determined (e.g. the client has commenced an intervention), the impacts

will, necessarily, not be seen for some time and cannot be determined within the BYG timeframe. The issue of

tracking BYG clients over time (by way of a longitudinal study) warrants further consideration. The question of

monitoring and evaluating the Youth Guarantee nationally is returned to at the end of this report.

6.2PartnershipandinteragencyworkPartnershipatbothnationalandlocallevelwasadefiningfeatureoftheBYGpilot.Fromtheevaluationreport,

feedback from participants and other sources, there appears to be universal agreement that a partnership

approach is beneficial, especially for supporting seamless, effective pathways in the progression to the labour

market and for engaging the most marginalised young people. Partnership can release synergies, capitalise

on the experience and expertise of partners, identify gaps and solutions, and reduce the risk of duplication of

activity. At national level the partnership allowed for an exchange of information and insights between the DSP,

which was leading the project, and other key stakeholders in the statutory and civil society sectors and among

employers and trade unions. At local level it had a discernible impact on the range and quality of supports

and offers to clients through enhanced formal and informal contacts between the partners in identifying

opportunities that might be suitable for individual young people.

A particularly valuable example of a pre-existing partnership arrangement which made an important

contribution to the BYG was the Equal Youth Network, which operates a multi-agency casework approach to

the provision of supports and ‘integrated progression’ options to 16-24-year-olds who are early school leavers

and most distant from the labour market3. The Equal Youth Network meets on a monthly basis and works

through a case load of clients, providing updates on progression and discussing cases which require more

targeted support. This interagency approach enables the provision of a continuum of seamless support from

career guidance, through education/training interventions and into the workplace. The BJC/LES applied this

methodology within the BYG pilot, thereby engaging the full range of Equal Youth Network organisations in

delivering the guarantee to participants. Significantly, the Equal Youth Network has a very low level of non-

engagement or disengagement among the young people it works with.

3 The initiative was developed as an EU EQUAL-funded project (2005-2007) and has continued to operate. Organisations

involved in Equal Youth include the Ballymun Job Centre, Ballymun Community Training Centre, Ballymun Youthreach,

YoungPersons’Probation,BallymunLocalDrugsTaskForce,BallarkCommunityTrainingCentre,AnGardaSiochána,

Trinity Comprehensive, Ballymun Regional Youth Resource and the DSP.

17

6.3GuidanceprocessThe career guidance component of the BYG pilot was delivered by the Ballymun Job Centre, a community

based organisation providing employment related supports and services to local people since 1986. It was

established as a community response to a chronic unemployment situation and since 1996 the BJC has

managed the Local Employment Service in the Ballymun area, under contract with Ballymun Whitehall Area

Partnership and funded by DSP (it will henceforth be referred to as the BJC/LES). Intreo did not provide a

guidance service within the framework of the BYG apart from the initial Group Information Session4. Instead,

the BJC was appointed by the Department of Social Protection to provide the service and five LES Mediators

were assigned to deliver guidance to the BYG client cohort - a level of provision significantly greater than the

current, or anticipated, guidance practitioner/client ratios elsewhere. All the BJC/LES guidance staff hold at a

minimum the Certificate in Adult Guidance (Maynooth University) along with training in specific diagnostic

tools and psychometric tests that are not commonly available to DSP Case Officers (for example EGUIDE,

eMERGE). The BJC/LES guidance process is more intensive than the DSP norm, typically involving three to four

interviews. An advantage from the perspective of the DSP was that the partnership with BJC/LES facilitated

more intensive engagement with young people in a manner that did not compromise the delivery of services to

other unemployed jobseekers in the local Intreo centre.

TheBYGapproachtoguidanceiscomparedwiththestandardIntreoapproachinFigure5.

Figure 5: Comparison of BYG and Intreo guidance processes

The BYG guidance process involved the collection of additional data about all clients – over and above that

collected for PEX purposes – at the outset of the engagement process. Guidance staff commented that

this provided a more comprehensive basis for determining need and facilitating the progress of individual

clients. PEX values are expressed in a composite score which has proven to be robust in predicting a person’s

probability of exiting the Live Register (which the model was designed to do) and can assist in targeting

resources at those most at risk of long-term unemployment, but are of limited assistance to guidance

practitioners when it comes to identifying an individual client’s needs, aptitudes or competences.


4 This term replaces “Group Engagement” which was used during the BYG pilot.

BYG INTREO

PEX profiling plus additional profiling and needs assessment

PEX profiling

Group Information Session Group Information Session

Meeting(s) with Mediator/Case OfficerMeeting(s) with Mediator/Case Officer

Guarantee of offer within 4 months of first meeting with guidance practitioner

Other support as appropriate (e.g. CE referrals, vacancy matching)

Guarantee of offer within 4 months (low PEX score) or 9 months (medium and high PEX score) from date of first

1-to-1 meeting after Group Information Session

‘Pre-offer’ (e.g. counselling) if necessary

Use of ‘flexible fund’ and post-offer support if necessary

Other support as appropriate (e.g. CE referrals, vacancy matching)

18

Staff also believed there was a ‘fundamental difference’ between the BYG and Intreo models in terms of the

content of meetings and the use of allocated time. In the BYG, meetings were used to conduct an initial in-

depth needs assessment, career exploration and guidance (often utilising the tools and methods indicated

above) and career planning. Time was spent developing the career plan with the clients rather than ‘checking

on progress’. Mediators in the BYG noted that because the Group Information Session took place in the Intreo

offices, clients were sometimes apprehensive about availing of the service, although they were usually put at

ease during their first meeting.

BYG clients were given an offer within four months of a meeting with a guidance practitioner. The average

number of meetings leading to an offer was between two and three (for all Target Groups). The requirement to

give an offer within four months in all cases was considered by guidance officers to be inappropriate, as further

time was required in some cases to agree a suitable progression route. The delay between some offers being

made and the offer becoming available was also considered problematic; for example an offer of a PLC course

made in January, but not being available until September. Some clients availed of (potentially less suitable)

interventions in the meantime. This also had an impact on capacity planning (waiting list clients not turning up

for a course as they had commenced an alternative).

A small number of BYG clients did not have the capacity to avail of a ‘quality’ offer. In keeping with the client-

centred approach of the project, they were instead given a ‘pre-offer’, including mental health or addiction

counselling. This was to allow participants the time to engage with supports that would assist them to address

their personal problems. In such cases if clients missed counselling twice the guidance team was informed and

the client was brought back to a review meeting. The take up of addiction counselling was better than for

mental health support but overall it was described as poor by BYG staff. The BYG has committed to continuing

to work with these clients to support them along what will necessarily be a longer pathway to employment.

It was the experience of guidance practitioners on the BYG pilot that a small amount of money could make

the difference between a client being able to take up an offer or not. The economic and social profile of

the area, the family and community environment and the personal profile of some clients was such that the

availability of an offer was sometimes not sufficient in itself to ensure that the young person could take up

the ‘guarantee’. As a result a ‘flexible fund’ was established to support individualised responses to barriers

faced by BYG participants. It was used when a solution could not otherwise be found from existing actions,

programmes or resources. Over 90 participants accessed the fund. In the evaluation of the BYG guidance

model the additional funding was identified as a very important support by both guidance practitioners and

young people.

An additional element of flexibility was introduced through the provision of continued support for clients

after they took up the offer of employment or work experience, education or training. This included ongoing

contactwithclientswhileonFETprogrammesorworkexperience/placementtoreducetheriskofdrop-out

or return to unemployment on cessation. Given the starting point of many participants, the offer may be a

firststeponwhatcouldbealongjourneyrequiringfurtherinterventionsandongoingsupport.Following

agreement from the Local Implementation Group, BJC/LES staff contacted participants and their tutor/host

organisation or employer to identify additional/complementary supports linked to their current experience

and their career plan in order to enhance post-offer sustainability. By the end of the pilot 76 participants had

benefitted from this support.

19

ClientengagementWhile the large majority of clients engaged well with the BYG there was a problem of persistent disengagement

among a small number of participants. In particular there was a high level of no-show/non-response to the

initial invitation to the Group Information Session, although the vast majority of young people had attended by

the third call. The problem of non-engagement was particularly marked among Target Group 1 young people,

33% of whom disengaged at some point in the process, but the vast majority of these re-engaged after follow-

up from the guidance staff.

These responses led the guidance team to make a number of changes (revising the content and tone of the

invitation, literacy proofing, change of venue), but while staff believed such changes to be warranted in their

own right they did not in fact result in higher levels of attendance at the initial Group Information Session. This

would appear to confirm that some young people are particularly far removed from the labour market and

from other forms of ‘institutional’ provision and the problem of engaging with them is especially severe.

As noted in the evaluation of the BYG guidance model, the imposition of financial penalties when clients failed

to engaged or subsequently disengaged from the process was a delicate issue. The standard Department of

Social Protection approach is to impose a financial penalty when a client fails to respond to two invitations to

engage or declines or drops out of a suitable offer/ intervention without a satisfactory explanation. However,

the DSP piloted a more relaxed regime following representations from BYG partners.

The view of mediators was that when applied strategically this was a constructive element of the model,

allowing young people to re-engage. Good communications with the Department and with service providers

helped to ensure that penalty rating was for the most part perceived as beneficial to the client and was

sometimes avoided. In engaging with young people, mediators emphasised the mutual responsibilities that

were expected to be upheld within the BYG process. The idea of incentivising participation (for example

through training allowances or lunch allowances) rather than penalising non-participation was raised by some

providers (and also by clients). Reward-based trips did prove successful in motivating learners to complete

academic tasks and other assignments in some of the BYG programmes.

6.4EducationandtrainingThe City of Dublin Education and Training Board (CDETB) was a key partner of the BYG, represented on both

the NSG and the LIG. The main challenge for CDETB was to create a flexible model of training and education

that met the needs of the identified target groups, could be delivered as the young people completed

the guidance process and could also be planned and budgeted for. This required detailed planning where

programmes agreed at the LIG had to be accommodated within a range of funding models that existed in the

TrainingCentrethathadonlyrecentlybeentransferredfromFÁS(underthereformoftheFETsectoraspart

of the establishment of SOLAS) and in the further education colleges. An internal planning and co-ordinating

group was established within CDETB comprising the Education Officer, the Adult Education Officer, the

Youthreach Co-ordinator, the Guidance Counsellor, the Literacy Organiser and the Training Centre Manager

and all of these also liaised directly with other BYG partners as appropriate.

In considering the principles that should inform its engagement with the BYG, the CDETB stressed the

importance of providing:

• Aperson-centred approach, enabling the young person to actively participate in a programme that

addressed their needs;


20

• Tailored services for those at risk of long-term unemployment and social exclusion;

• Aschemethatreflectedthedisparate needs of the client groups (i.e. with a focus on the educational

needs of younger clients, whereas for the older age group with higher educational attainment the

focus was on skills development and job placement);

• Anexpansion of capacity to respond to need (the programme could not only be about co-ordinating

existing provision or prioritising certain young people for entry into the existing programmes because

this would merely displace young people who had not signed on the Live Register and were therefore

not entitled to avail of the Youth Guarantee scheme).

Under the terms of the BYG the following education and training initiatives were taken:

• AllBYGclientswereguaranteedaninterviewforaplaceonaprogrammeoftheirchoice,pending

the meeting of requisite entrance requirements and the joint recommendation of the suitability of the

programme following their guidance interview.

• TherewaspriorityaccessforBYGclientstotherangeoftrainingprogrammesprovidedintheCDETB

TrainingCentre(Finglas).

• CDETBincreasedthenumberofplacesinthelocalCommunityTrainingCentreandinYouthreachto

take account of the profile of young people in Ballymun.

• TheCDETBAdultEducationServiceprovidedadditionalpart-timecoursesatLevels3and4onthe

NationalQualificationsFrameworkandstudyskillsandspecialistcoursesinscience,physiologyand

anatomywereprovidedtothoseyoungpeoplewhohadgotplacesincoursesinFEcollegesor

universities.

• FundingwasmadeavailablefortheprovisionofatrainingprogrammebyBRYRYouthService(a

registered QQI centre) targeting early school leavers who were not likely to engage with the further

education and training services directly.

• TheLiteracyOrganiserofBallymunReadandWriteScheme,fundedbyCDETB,providedadditional

part-time literacy and numeracy programmes.

• Additionalcounsellingandcareerguidancesupportswereprovidedforlearners.

• TherewascontinuousliaisonbetweenCDETBandBallymunJobCentreandotherlocalorganisations

to discuss and progress and progression routes for learners.

• CDETBdevelopedanewtraineeshipprogrammeinpartnershipwithIKEA.

• Exitinterviewstookplacewiththoselearnerswholefttoascertainreasonsfordoingso.

Other innovations that took place in the education and training field included the following:

• BYGcollaboratedwithUniversityCollegeDublinInnovationAcademytodevelopanddeliveraLevel7

Certificate in Enterprise, Innovation and Entrepreneurship with additional supports for students with

literacy/numeracy/personaldifficulties.Followingthissuccessfulpilotaproposalhasbeendevelopedto

deliver a similar programme at Level 4/5 and test a ‘train-the-trainer’ model to facilitate delivery by the

ETBs. This would enable the programme to be mainstreamed nationwide.

• Ablendededucationprogrammewasdevelopedinthecateringsector(afurtheriterationofthe

successful Postive2Work programme in the retail and warehousing sector).

• TheIrishCongressofTradeUnionsdeliveredan‘employabilityskills’programmewhichincludedawork

placement which the participant researched in the initial module.

21

6.5EmployerengagementThe section above has made it clear that a particular focus of the BYG was to increase the volume and range

of options available to meet the diverse needs of the young unemployed and to develop innovative responses.

Another was to engage and build links with employers to ensure that the guidance and training elements

of the YG were tailored to the needs of the labour market and also to generate work placement/experience

opportunities for the participants.

As stated earlier in this report, business and employer organisations were represented on both national

and local partnership structures for the BYG and have supported the Public Employment Service to better

understand how best to engage with employers to promote the range of existing supports and services and

better leverage their Corporate Social Responsibility. Activities included:

• DedicatedDSPandBJC/LESEmployerEngagementofficerswereassignedtodrivebothlocaland

regional engagement;

• Asuiteofcommunicationtoolswasintroduced:

o Promotion of BYG website with a specific section targeting employers;

o Development of a database of email address and contacts for local employers;

o Use of mailshots and leaflets;

o Communicating through business/employer network newsletters, e.g. the Dublin and North Dublin

Chambers of Commerce, Dublin City Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), Ibec.

• Adatabaseoflocalemployerswasdevelopedtofacilitatecommunicationandrelationshipbuilding.

This has involved ‘cold calling’ of employers by phone and physical visits within the local Ballymun area

and the collation of a resulting database of interested employers.

• ‘Breakfastbriefingsessions’werehostedtoraiseawarenessoftheYGandgaugewillingnessto

support it. Employers gave testimonials and encouraged their peers to participate.

• CurrentDSPpromotionalmaterialwascriticallyassessedandaleafletproducedwhichsummarised

supports available and presented a ‘menu of options’ for how employers could assist the YGS,

including:

o recruitment from the register of unemployed;

o hosting interns;

o providing short work sampling/experience opportunities;

o collaborating in the development and delivery of blended learning opportunities;

o giving motivational talks at JobsClubs and indicating the skills/qualities sought from prospective

recruits;

o facilitating onsite visits by young jobseekers to demonstrate the careers available.

The latter has since been subsumed in the national Employment and Youth Activation Charter.

• Asurveyoflocalemployerswasconducted.Of99localemployerswhoresponded,64%indicated

that they were willing to recruit from the Live Register (of jobseekers), 20% said that they were willing

to host a site tour and 18% were willing to give a talk at a JobsClub, provide advice regarding CV

preparation and give mock interviews.


22

• AsurveyofleadingDublinemployerswasconductedattheoutsetoftheprojectthroughtheDublin

Chamber of Commerce to gauge general awareness of government supports in place to support

recruitment of young people. Awareness levels were low among the 169 respondents in relation to

Intreo services, the DSP’s ‘JobsIreland’ website and the JobsPlus incentive.

• AnumberofHRmanagersparticipatedinworkshopswhichwereorganisedaspartoftheevaluation

of the BYG guidance process.

• Fiftyemployerswere‘doorstepped’andthreesubsequentlymetwiththePESEmployerEngagement

Team.

• Twocompaniesparticipatedinthe‘FeedingIreland’sFuture’initiative,providing2-3dayworkshopson

confidence building/CV preparation and work sampling (25 participants).

• Onecompanyrantwo‘Positive2Work’blendedworkprogrammesinwarehousingandsubsequently

recruited 18 participants.

• Onecompanyisdevelopinganewblendedlearningopportunityinthecateringsector.

• Onecompanyiscollaboratingtodevelopanewtraineeshipprogrammeintheretailsector(15

participants).

• ParticipantsonanICTU‘employabilityskills’programmewereprovidedwithworkexperienceby18

employers (26 participants, of which six were subsequently recruited).

• TwoemployerswhowereapproachedbytheJobCentreprovidedworkexperiencetofourparticipants

and subsequently recruited two of these.

• TwoemployersattendedJobsClubsandgavemockinterviews(60participants).

• TheNSGhasformulatedanumberofrecommendationstoinformthedevelopmentofanEmployer

Engagement Strategy.

• TheIrishCongressofTradeUnionsproposedandtheNSGadoptedaMemorandumofUnderstanding

in relation to work placements and work experience opportunities to ensure that:

o a valuable quality experience is provided for the trainee and

o the assignment does not displace or negatively impact on the existing workforce.

In a separate but complementary initiative to the examples listed above, the Department of Social Protection

funded a collaboration with Business in the Community (BITC) to trial a new intervention for very marginalised

clients comprising a short pre-employment course and a four-week work placement. In the case of BITC the

business sector itself engages with employers with a view to assessing their CRS appetite and promoting

CRS activity. At the interim stage of this pilot 80% of businesses who had been approached had engaged

immediately or committed to future engagement. Eleven participants had undertaken training (out of a target

of 45 for the entire programme), six of these had commenced a work placement and five had completed the

placement. All five of these had secured employment with the host firm. The primary difference between

the pilot and existing BITC programmes is the assignment of an in-house Training and Employment Officer to

provide guidance support to each participant.

23

6.6Publicly-fundedemploymentprogrammes

A key challenge identified early in the BYG pilot was the difficulty of providing a sufficient number of suitable

offers within the limited timeframe available. As already stated a particular focus of the BYG was to increase

the volume and range of options available to meet the disparate needs of the client base, and the shortage

of private sector employment opportunities in Ballymun placed additional pressure on state provision. It was

within this context that the BYG Project Manager sought a relaxation of the standard Community Employment

Scheme programme eligibility criteria so as to extend access to BYG clients. The DSP agreed to sanction

derogation from standard CE eligibility to facilitate mediated access to BYG clients who were:

• aged20yearsandover,and

• inreceiptofajobseekerpaymentfor12monthsorassessedashavingalow/mediumProbabilityofExit

from the Live Register (PEX), i.e. at risk of long-term unemployment.

Eligible BYG clients could access appropriate existing CE schemes. Ballymun Job Centre/LES under the

stewardship of the Department of Social Protection delivered the mediated referral and placement process, and

16localCommunityEmploymentschemesparticipatedintheinitiative.ApartfromFETprogrammes(further

education and training), CE was the single most popular type of offer among young people participating in

the BYG pilot. While research has questioned the value of community based employment schemes in active

labour market terms (O’Connell 2002; O’Connell et al. 2012) the feedback from sponsors, supervisors and

participants to this BYG innovation was particularly positive, with one guidance practitioner describing the

initiative as having ‘probably the greatest impact on my clients’. The role of the CE programme in the context

of the Youth Guarantee is returned to later in this report.

In a further related innovation, new recruitment processes for the Gateway and Tús schemes have been trialled

as part of the BYG.

6.7YouthworkapproachAs indicated earlier in this report, the benefits of a youth work approach to combating youth unemployment

have been widely acknowledged in the European and international literature and this was one of the themes

highlighted during Ireland’s Presidency of the European Union in 2013, during which formal agreement was

reached on the Youth Guarantee. The credibility, accessibility and relative informality that youth work projects

and organisations have from a young person’s point of view can be a great advantage in attempting to

engage them in a range of other types of provision and in ensuring that services are responsive to their needs

and interests, but there may also be risks in this from the youth work perspective that need to be taken into

account.Forexampletheymaybecomelessattractivetoyoungpeopleiftheycometobeassociatedwith

more formal education or training provision.

As well as the National Youth Council of Ireland being represented on the National Steering Group for

the BYG, a local youth work organisation, Ballymun Regional Youth Resource, was a member of the Local

Implementation Group and was directly involved in the design and delivery of the project.

There were a number of dimensions to BRYR’s role:

• CapturingthefeedbackofyoungpeopleinrelationtotheBYGthroughitsoutreachandin–house

services and providing this feedback to the LIG partners.


24

• Providingpracticalsupportforthemostmarginalisedyoungpeopletoassistthemtoengagewith

the programme from the initial guidance process through to their offer and beyond. Such one-to-one

support was provided for a substantial proportion of BYG participants.

• Actingasanadvocateforyoungpeopleatalltimes–puttingtheneedsofyoungpeopleinthe

community ‘front and centre’ on the agenda of the pilot.

• Participatinginpromotionalandinformationwork.

• Hostinginternsandtrainees.

BRYR delivered a Local Training Initiative for marginalised young people as part of the BYG pilot. As the

programme contained a Level 3 award and this level had already been attained by many potential participants,

a derogation was required to enable participants to receive a payment. A number of issues and challenges

arose during the programme, relating to undiagnosed learning difficulties, mental health and behavioural

issues, literacy and numeracy problems, substance misuse, group dynamics (influenced by events and

relationships outside the programme), the lack of incentives for participation (there was no training allowance)

or sanctions for non-engagement. The setting and content of the original proposal was altered in response to

concerns about the suitability of a classroom setting as a learning environment for early school leavers who

may have had a negative attitude to didactic learning or difficulties in maintaining the levels of concentration

required to participate in such a setting. Notwithstanding ongoing revision of course content, provision

of intensive support and proactive monitoring, attendance remained poor, highlighting the extent of the

challenge in developing an appropriate response to the needs of the most marginalised young people.

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7. LESSONS LEARNED AND IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE

The description of the key elements of the BYG presented above implicitly contains a number of important

lessons that have been learned from the pilot project. These are made more explicit below, along with other

insights developed through the independent evaluation of the overall project (O’Reilly, forthcoming) and a

range of other evaluations and consultations. Implications of the BYG for policy and practice in the national

implementation of the Youth Guarantee are also set out.

7.1 PartnershipPartnership was a critical success factor in the delivery of the Ballymun pilot Youth Guarantee, providing further

justification for the emphasis on partnership in the national Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan. It is vital

that the right partners are identified from the outset. It is appropriate therefore that the range of national

partner bodies provided for in the national plan is somewhat broader than in the National Steering Group for

the BYG (for example including the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, the Department of Justice and

Equality and the recently established Labour Market Council).

Inclusive and effective partnerships at local level are also vital. These should be tailored to the local context

and, in as far as is practicable, build on existing networks/channels of cooperation, such as Local Community

Development Committees and Local Area Partnership Companies. While replicating the local BYG structures

in other areas would be difficult and not necessarily appropriate, in principle it is always advisable to take

advantage of existing sources and networks of expertise and experience and these should be full partners in

the Youth Guarantee process.

Recognitionandsupportfortheresourcesandtimeneededtobuildeffectivepartnershipsisimportant.For

community organisations this is a particular challenge; any addition to their existing programmes of work

hasresourceimplicationswhichneedtobetakenintoaccount.ForStateservicedeliverers,partnership

approaches need to be acknowledged as part of their everyday work, for example by reflecting it in internal job

descriptionsandbuildinginpartnershipengagementaspartofperformanceevaluationcriteria.Foremployers,

establishing initial contact with potential partners is a challenge; allowing time and resources for employer

engagement is critical, and a targeted approach is required to establish and maintain such engagement.

Networks such as Ibec, Business in the Community and the Dublin Chamber of Commerce have shown the

potential both for improving engagement and for fostering partnership approaches with employers.

Successful partnership requires a ‘driver’ or ‘motivator’ to ensure that interagency approach works. There is

often a lack of a ‘partnership culture’ and agencies tend not to come to together unless they are mandated

by their funders. Consideration needs to be given to supporting and incentivising partnership work (through

funding criteria for example) and providing appropriate training for organisations and individuals.

26

Tensions may arise when there is a team of equal partners but one is in a position of leadership. A lead partner

is needed to provide vision, direction and encouragement, and take ultimate responsibility for the project, but

there are risks that other partners may not feel sufficiently valued, or not fully engage if it is perceived that they

are not responsible or accountable for success. This is particularly the case when participating organisations

have severe resource constraints. The problem might be mitigated by having greater clarity about the issues

mentioned directly above, and by practical steps such as an introductory workshop at the start of the process,

team-building initiatives, an independent/revolving chair or external facilitation.

There is a need for clarity in relation to such matters as:

• rolesandresponsibilitiesofpartners(a‘MemorandumofUnderstanding’isadvisableataminimum);

• keysharedobjectives;

• KPIs,reportingandmonitoring;

• governance;

• management(includingdedicatedprojectmanagementforpartnershipwork).

All partners have a key role in raising awareness among their own constituencies of the opportunities provided

by the Youth Guarantee. Employer and youth organisations can make very significant contributions in this

regard. Partners in the BYG believed that there was a very low level of awareness of the Youth Guarantee

among key stakeholders, including young people themselves.

There is a need therefore to review the effectiveness of the current approach to promotion and develop a

comprehensive communication strategy to raise awareness of the Youth Guarantee, tailoring the messages

and media for different audiences and stakeholders, and making it very clear what is different about the YG as

compared with the standard Public Employment Service.

7.2 GuidancemodelIt is recognised that the approach adopted in the BYG is not replicable in its entirety in all DSP regions, both for

reasons of cost and because of the need for responses to be tailored to local situations, as stated above. It is

also recognised that, even in the special circumstances of a pilot project with additional resources, some young

people’s distance from the labour market and from the formal education and training systems, along with

their (in many cases multiple) personal problems, made it exceptionally difficult to engage or re-engage them.

Feedbackfromguidancepractitioners,youngpeople,educationandtrainingprovidersandemployerssuggests

that certain key features are likely to make the guidance process more effective and successful in the context of

the national Youth Guarantee. These include the following.

• Anapproachthatisaboveallclient-centredandtailoredtotheneedsandcircumstancesofthe

individual, rather than process-driven.

• Aholisticapproachthataimstoempowerpeopletomakethemostoftheirexistingstrengthsand

resources and address their difficulties, rather than simply focusing on finding a job.

• Afocusonclearprogressbeingmadethroughtheguidanceprocess.

• Suitablytrained,qualifiedandexperiencedguidancepractitionersmakinguseofappropriatetoolsand

methods.

27

• Provisionofguidancesupportstoallclientswhocanbenefitfromthem,irrespectiveofPEXprofile;and

the collection of additional data allowing for a more tailored individual response.

• Aguidancesettingthatisaccessibleandattractivetoyoungpeople(GroupInformationSessions

as currently operated may not be the most effective way to engage the most disadvantaged young

people).

• Closeandongoingcontactswithemployersandwitheducationandtrainingproviders.

• Stronglinkswithotherrelevantsupportagenciestofacilitatereferralwhereappropriate.

• Adequateresourcestoreachandengagethetargetgroup(s).

• Effectivemanagementandquality-assuranceprocesses,andacommitmenttoevaluationandquality

enhancement.

The BYG experience also shows that for some young people, a level of ongoing support after the take up of an

offer can be a key factor in retention and completion.

On the basis of the above the following points are worthy of consideration in the context of the national Youth

Guarantee:

• Adoptionofabroadguidancepolicyandoperationalframeworkspecifyingtheroleofguidancewithin

the Public Employment Service generally and the delivery of the Youth Guarantee in particular. Clear

objectives and clear definitions of the main concepts, for example ‘guidance’, ‘employability’, ‘quality

offer’ should also be provided.

• Specificationofthecoredatasetrequiredtoidentifyandassessclientneeds/barriersandthemeans

(tools and processes) by which this information is best captured.

• Reassessmentofthedegreetowhichthecurrentclientprofilingandassessmentprocessescapture

information on core ‘soft skills’ and provide the basis for interventions that build client capacity in this

area.

• Adoptionofaflexibleclient-centredguidanceservicebothattheinitialstages,focusedonagreement

of a personal progression plan, and in supporting the client to successfully implement it.

• Implementationofthemulti-agency/multi-disciplinarycasemanagementapproachtosupportclients

facing multiple barriers.

• Astudyoftheeffectiveness(orotherwise)ofthecurrentPenaltyRateregimeinsecuringyoung

people’s engagement.

• Provisionoflocalflexibilitytodevelopappropriateresponsestoyouthengagementdependingupon

the client profile and the availability of progression opportunities and resources.

As the delivery of a quality guidance service relies on appropriate personnel who need to be trained and

supported, consideration should also be given to identifying the how this is best addressed, particularly for new

Case Officers who have no professional career guidance background or qualification.


28

7.3 EducationandtrainingThe profile analysis of young people on the Live Register in Ballymun enabled the Local Implementation Group

for the BYG to plan for a range of options to be provided. This also allowed the City of Dublin Education and

Training Board to put in place additional training and education places for those young people participating in

the Youth Guarantee.

There were challenges in such capacity planning. There was an expectation at the outset that Key Performance

Indicators would include the availability of places for all young people covered by the Guarantee. It was not

possible for the CDETB to plan a programme for every referral in advance of the guidance engagement with

the client groups. Additional provision was put in place for each of the target groups but not in the numbers

that the statistics would seem to indicate. There are two models for delivery. One is to establish courses with

specific start dates for referral by the guidance service; the other is to put in place courses for client groups

when the numbers are viable. In practice the BYG pilot required a combination of both approaches and getting

the balance right was an important part of delivering a flexible model.

TheCDETBwassuccessfulinsecuringadditionalfundingfromSOLAS,theFurtherEducationandTraining

Authority, because of the pilot nature of the BYG initiative. However, in the national roll out of the Youth

Guarantee it will be the responsibility of each ETB to plan its response within its budget allocation. Timing

will be a vital consideration. If they are to include additional and innovative programmes plans will have to be

finalised in time for the annual negotiations with SOLAS relating to the budget for the following year.

A significant policy issue requires careful consideration. The need to respond to young people on the Live

Register under the Youth Guarantee will require the ETBs to prioritise access to existing courses without

additional places being made available. This may require the ETBs to displace young people who are ‘self-

referrals’ and who have not signed on to the Live Register. In addition, the young people availing of the Youth

Guarantee will be in competition with other DSP clients who may also be a departmental priority under other

policy areas, such as that relating to the long-term unemployed. This will necessarily impact on the capacity of

the ETBs to respond effectively and flexibly to the diverse needs of the young unemployed as was done in the

case of the BYG pilot.

There will be a practical challenge in avoiding the creation of barriers to participation or progression. The

ETBs will be providing programmes under different budgets each of which carries its own entry requirements

and restrictions. Matching the right fund to the right initiative, while also ensuring that barriers are not

inadvertentlycreatedforyoungpeople,willbeachallenge.Forexample,acourseatLevel5providedbyPLC

fundingthroughaFurtherEducationCollegewillrequireyoungpeopletopayafee.Thesamecourseprovided

in a Training Centre will be free and may provide a training allowance to the young person. The ‘flexible fund’

used in the BYG pilot initiative was effective in addressing such situations and supporting young people to

access the programmes that carried fees or required support with travel and subsistence.

Finally,theBYGexperiencehighlightstheimportanceoftheETBworkinginpartnershipwithcommunity-based

youth work and community education providers to support the most marginalised young people to engage

with the guidance process and to complete the education and training or work opportunities offered.

29

7.4 EmployerengagementAt the outset of the BYG pilot, a survey of leading Dublin businesses found that they had relatively low levels of

awareness of employment services and supports, and they expressed the view that marketing and promotional

material for these was ineffective. However, once relationships had been established they expressed positive

views about the supports in place and as the pilot BYG progressed there were a number of examples of

successful and effective engagement with local employers. A number of additional lessons were learned.

• ThereisaneedtoarticulateaclearEmployerEngagementStrategy,settingobjectives,targetsandKPIs

(for example measuring levels of satisfaction of employers with the Intreo service).

• Relationshipsneedtobecarefullybuiltandnurturedwithemployers,representativegroupsand

business chambers at the national, regional and local level. Active engagement is essential (one-to-one

contacts, targeted communication, regular presence at networking events and so on).

• ThereshouldbeamoreconsistentapproachtoengagementbetweenIntreoservicesandemployers

(for example a standard package or service for employers that engage with Intreo; a standard job

description for Intreo employer liaison officers). The idea of Intreo staff participating in employer

representative groups in a liaison capacity merits consideration. It is frustrating and counterproductive

when employers attempt to engage with the Intreo service and find that it does not live up to

expectations.

• EmployerswillalsobediscouragedfromengagingwiththeIntreoserviceiflargenumbersof

unpreparedcandidatesarereferredtothem.Fromanemployerperspective,therefore,guidanceand

interview preparation is the critical element if the Public Employment Service is to become a realistic

alternative to other recruitment methods (e.g. referrals from their own staff, private recruitment

agencies, internet etc.).

• Thesystemwouldbenefitfromstrongerliaisonbetweentheeducationandtrainingproviders

and employers to ensure that the investment in training and education are matching the needs of

employers and the labour force in general. Greater awareness of what employers seek in terms of skills,

aptitudes and attitudes will enhance the employability of programme participants. The Department of

Education and Skills is examining a strategy for employer engagement in this regard.

• Promotionalandmarketingmaterialsneedtobetailoredtothecircumstancesandneedsofemployers

of all sizes, including those with small numbers of staff; and all approaches and engagements should

take account of the fact that most employers are ‘micro’ in scale (≤ 10 employees).

• ThestraightbusinesscaseforemployerengagementintheYouthGuaranteeneedstobemademore

explicit, in addition to the emphasis on corporate social responsibility. Not enough is made of positive

employer experiences through the use of testimonials both in print and in online forums.

The establishment of the national Labour Market Council and its relationship with the Department of Social

Protection provides an opportunity for enhanced communication about employment services between the DSP,

employers and other stakeholders, as will the participation of the LMC as a partner in the implementation of

the national Youth Guarantee.


30

7.5 YouthworkapproachSome lessons that were identified by the BYG relating to the youth work approach were as follows.

• Youthworkhasakeyroletoplayasanadvocateforyoungpeople,ensuringthattheirviewsand

perspectives are taken into account.

• Youthworkorganisationsneedtobeclearfromtheoutsetabouttheirroleandpotentialcontribution

to the implementation of the Youth Guarantee.

• Youthworkorganisationsneedtobeawareofandaddressthechallengesthatparticipationinthe

roll out of the initiative poses, such as the fact that their focus on the overall wellbeing of the young

person can be in tension with the focus on progression to employment in the Youth Guarantee.

• Youthworkorganisationneedstoengagewithotherpartnersandmakethemawareoftherole,

principles and values of youth work.

• Governmentandotherpartnersneedtorecognisethatthecontributionofyouthworkorganisationsin

supporting the implementation of the Youth Guarantee must be funded and resourced.

7.6VerymarginalisedyoungpeopleThe pilot Youth Guarantee has highlighted the difficulty of engaging those young people who are most

vulnerable and most distant from the labour market. These are usually young people who have left school

early, with limited or no formal educational credentials, and by the time they come into contact with the Public

Employment Service at the age of 18 their educational disadvantage has often been compounded by other

negative experiences and their problems have become even more intractable. The BYG demonstrates that

certain activation measures (for example the Local Training Initiative, internships) may not always be suitable

for such young people, at least without appropriate adaptation. Given the reality of their lives, questions

arise about the meaningfulness of these young people’s ‘live register’ status as they are a very long way from

being ‘job ready’. A modified designation of vocational or training status might enable them to receive the

intensive support necessary to secure vocational qualifications and enhance their employability, but any such

modification would need to be carefully proofed against unintended negative consequences for the young

people in question.

It is likely that no one agency will have the requisite skills to meet these young people’s needs. What is strongly

recommended is an approach similar to that implemented by the Equal Youth Network in Ballymun, which uses

an intensive, interagency case management approach.

Much could be gained if all training programmes, employment schemes and work placement options

reconsidered their approach to the most disadvantaged young people, including initial engagement, profiling,

selection onto the right initiatives and ongoing supports.

31

7.7 Adjustmentstoemploymentprogrammes

Flexibility,inanumberofrespectsandinvariouscontexts,wasidentifiedasakeyfactorintheachievement

of positive outcomes during the BYG pilot project. It was evident, for example, in the timing and scheduling

of education and training programmes, or the derogation from regulations regarding the receipt of payment

while participating in training at an award level already attained. The ‘flexible fund’ was also regularly cited as a

vital support.

In particular, in the absence of alternatives, the relaxation of eligibility criteria for participation in the

Community Employment programme was identified as vitally important in enabling the BYG to make an offer

to so many young people, and the response among young people themselves was very positive (although it is

recognised that it is too early to say whether there are longer term benefits and what they will be). The trialling

of new recruitment processes for Gateway and Tús schemes was also found to be beneficial. While there are

obvious resource implications and possible displacement issues, a failure to extend such initiatives across the

national Youth Guarantee scheme may lead to serious capacity problems (in numbers of offers available) unless

the overall labour market situation improves markedly.

While it is clear that an adaptation of existing programmes was successful in enabling participation in the pilot

YG of a significant number of young people who could otherwise probably not have done so, this very point

may also confirm that existing programmes were not designed to take adequate account of the situation of

young people, particularly those who are disadvantaged. In addition to the youth-oriented variants of existing

schemes, consideration should therefore be given to the design of a ‘youth-specific’ employment programme,

which would have sufficient flexibility within it to respond to the diverse needs of different groups of young

people.

7.8 InformationsystemsWhile the interagency approach was important to the success of the BYG it presented considerable challenges

in terms of the collection and analysis of data and the tracking of individual young people through the

engagement and guidance processes and on to one or more offers of education and training, work placement

or employment. Specifically, the BYG has generated learning which should be taken into account in the

development of procedures and protocols governing the interaction between the DSP and the ETBs.

Forlong-termresearchandpolicypurposestheissueofinformationsystemsfortheYouthGuaranteerequires

close attention. Some comments by O’Higgins (2002) are relevant here:

A key element in the design and subsequent modification of youth (as indeed for adult) employment

policies is the monitoring and evaluation stage. This very much relies on an established labour

market information (LMI) collection system. This is something that is often entirely lacking or at least

inadequate. LMI is necessary also at the planning stage. One needs to know with some precision

the difficulties that the target group or groups face on the labour market. Which of those amongst,

for example, the general category of ‘youth’ are most in need of assistance and so forth. Once

programmes are actually implemented, monitoring of the programmes (sometimes referred to as

process evaluation) can be used to ensure that for example, the programmes reach the designated

target group, that programme costs are kept within target limits, that a target proportion of the group

complete programmes, that a target proportion of participants find employment after the programme


32

and so on. These are very obvious albeit fundamental points, however, experience shows that the

importance of their role is clearly underestimated in the implementation of youth labour market

policies in many countries.

The ongoing relevance of O’Higgins’s observations are borne out by the BYG pilot. The evidence shows that

it was very successful in making offers to unemployed young people in Ballymun. These offers were timely,

with almost 100% made within the intended four month period. They also had ‘quality’, as judged by the

participants themselves, by guidance practitioners, educators and trainers, and employers. But, because this

was a pilot, their longer term effectiveness in terms of labour market activation necessarily remains to be

seen (and at least some of them may be fulfilling objectives – very important and worthwhile objectives –

whose primary benefit may not in fact relate directly to labour market activation). Even within the terms of

the pilot (largely because of the complexity of the problems, processes and relationships involved) systems

were not in place to record detailed information about the progression of individual participants and the

many variables relevant to their participation and their experience during the guidance process and beyond,

as they participated in education and training, in work placement or in employment. Some of the difficulties

and challenges involved in the development of such systems may be insurmountable but it is very important

to grapple with them at the earliest stages in the implementation of the Youth Guarantee nationally. It

will otherwise not be possible to arrive at confident conclusions in the future as to its effectiveness or

ineffectiveness, or to disentangle its contribution from a range of other factors or from the effects of an

improvement or disimprovement in the overall economic environment (European Commission 2014c: 18).

33

8. CONCLUSION: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE BALLYMUN PILOT YOUTH GUARANTEE

An independent evaluation has been conducted of the BYG pilot and, separately, evaluations and consultations

have also been conducted relating to a number of specific initiatives and dimensions of the project. Some key

statistical data regarding the number and breakdown of offers and interventions have been presented above.

It is too early to make a full assessment of the effectiveness of the BYG as a response to youth unemployment.

TheEuropeanCommission’sFrequentlyAskedQuestionsontheYouthGuarantee,inconsideringwhat

constitutes a ‘quality offer’, stresses that ‘what it does NOT mean is any counselling or any activation measures

or any occupation that would have an immediate effect to reduce the statistics of youth unemployment for

a while’. Time will need to elapse before it can be known whether the employment, education and training

opportunities offered to, and taken up by, young people through the BYG have had a longer term positive

impact on both their individual circumstances and on unemployment rates in general. Indeed even with the

passage of time questions of this type will be difficult to answer without better information systems being put

in place, a point made in the previous section.

However, it does appear that in terms of what could be achieved within a very tight (one year) timescale, and

in an area that was selected precisely on the basis that its youth unemployment problem was severe, the pilot

has achieved considerable success. The vast majority of young people were offered a relevant opportunity in

a timely fashion, and the feedback from the participants themselves as well as from education and training

providers, employers and other stakeholders was for the most part very positive. The project experience does

confirm the intractability of the problems affecting the most marginalised among the young unemployed, even

when extensive and intensive, multi-disciplinary and multi-agency supports are provided. It also confirms the

basic structural and contextual problem of a shortage of private sector job opportunities for young people (and

older people) in Ballymun, although the employment situation both locally and nationally continued to improve

over the duration of the pilot.

It is not possible, on the basis of the short time that has passed since the completion of the pilot, the nature of

the data collected or the research and evaluation design that was practicable within the context of the project,

to say that any decrease in youth unemployment in Ballymun, or any particular portion of such a decrease,

can be directly (causally) attributed to the BYG itself. However it is striking that the Live Register figure for

under 25s in Ballymun decreased by 29% between the end of December 2013 and the end of December

2014, the period of the project’s implementation, compared with a national decrease of 19%. Other areas

of North Dublin recorded decreases of between 14 % and 24%, and an area of Dublin selected on the basis

that its PEX profile is most similar to Ballymun’s recorded a decrease of 19% (other factors would need to be

taken into account in a more rigorous analysis). Within Ballymun, the fall in the Live Register among persons

aged 25 and over was just 4%. Despite the difficulty in attributing cause, therefore, and the uncertainty about

sustainability or longer term success, it is certainly the case that the youth unemployment situation in Ballymun,

in a comparative sense, improved considerably during the period of the pilot Youth Guarantee.

34

Some other conclusions can be arrived at with reasonable confidence. It is clear that in addition to the tangible

outcomes to date for most young people who participated (in terms of education, training, work placement or

employment) the project appears to have been highly successful in influencing clients’ subjective perceptions

of themselves, their place in the labour market and their expectations and readiness for the future. The client

feedback in the overall project evaluation was highly favourable, and the evaluation of the BYG guidance

model concluded that the ‘self-definition’ of clients had improved in a way that was ‘likely to have long-term

effects’. It also stated:

The core objective of the BYG pilot was to make an investment in young people to enable them to be

sustainable on the labour market in the long-term by increasing their employability. Within the Pilot,

making a referral to education or training programmes [was] not necessarily considered to be an end

[in itself] but a stepping stone on the career path of the young person. The evidence to date from the

pilot suggests the success of this approach, with the clients expressing their confidence in their future

directionandabilitytomovetowardsemployment…Fromtheperspectivesofboththeparticipants

and the staff involved in the delivery of the service, the BYG guidance model contributes towards

the development of career identity (e.g. seeing themselves as part of the labour market and having

a clearly defined role within it), adaptability (e.g. the development of career management skills such

as resilience, self-efficacy and flexibility) and human and social capital (e.g. improved skills developed

through their quality offer and improved social skills, team participation, interview skills).

Attempts to develop a coherent and sustainable national response to youth unemployment will certainly be

boosted by approaches and initiatives that enable these skills and attributes to be acquired by larger numbers

of young people. It may be noted that such ‘soft outcomes’ for participants are included in the framework

recommended by Eurofound for analysing the effectiveness of youth employment measures. These, along with

alternative measures of success such as ‘distance travelled’ by individual young people and the quality of the

services provided, can be placed alongside rates of unemployment, participation in education and training or

increases/decreases in social cost to give a fuller picture of the effectiveness of interventions (Eurofound 2012:

23).

35

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